Finally

For so long I’ve felt like dead weight—watching my mother carry burdens I couldn’t lift, watching her exhaust herself to keep us afloat while I stood there wishing I could do more. That guilt clung to me like a second skin.

But now, with this job as a teaching assistant, something feels different. For the first time, I’m not only surviving for myself—I’m finally able to help her. We both wake up and go to work now, both earning, both carrying part of the load. It isn’t much, but it’s something. And in that “something” is a kind of quiet relief: she doesn’t have to bear it all alone anymore.

There’s a strange hope in that. A hope wrapped in my usual melancholy, yes, but still hope. Knowing I can put food on the table too, knowing I can pay a bill here and there, knowing I can take some of the weight off her shoulders—it matters. She’s given everything for me, and now, in some small way, I can give something back.

And maybe that’s what keeps me going. The children at school remind me of the future—bright, fragile, full of possibility—and my mother reminds me of the past and present, of sacrifice and survival. Between them, I find myself believing—just barely—that I might not be useless after all.

Of course, the old thoughts remain: maybe this is just another dream, another illusion that I matter. Maybe the impact I long for is always just out of reach. But for now, I’m working. I’m helping. And for the first time in a long time, I can look at my mother and know she doesn’t have to carry the world alone.

And maybe, if nothing else, that is enough.